Capability
by a mountain of gideon's scones
Summary: AmelieOliver. Set after Black Dawn. Realisations occur when one has the ability to see past what one has always seen - or what one thinks has occured. / "You are as capable a prince as any I have ever known." R


**AN:** AmelieOliver - written in less than 25 minutes, so...

I don't own anything

For sleeping butterfly

I'd appreciate it if you didn't favourite without reviewing, thanks!

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"You don't understand, do you?" Oliver's direct with his approach as he addresses Amelie in her office. "We've been far too lenient in this town, with the humans, over the years, and they have grown cocky. You can see that from the way that they were able to fight the draug with us…and it needs to be stopped."

All Amelie does is arch one eyebrow at her fellow vampire, waiting for him to finish before she interjects. Normally, there would perhaps have been an interruption on her behalf before he finishes speaking, yet the memory that she wouldn't be where she is now without Oliver's intervention moves to the forefront of her mind, and prevents her from doing so. It also softens her words when she _does_ speak, "I believe that you have mistaken the pronoun _we_, and its use, for you have been in Morganville scarcely more than a year, Oliver, and therefore you have had little say in how things are run."

"They would kill you if they have the chance, Amelie," he throws in, and Amelie finds herself frowning at how this is relevant to the situation at hand, and their discussion about the powers held by humans in the town.

"And this is particular to this conversation because—?" she trails off, waiting for him to answer, and he turns away from her. Only then, as he looks through the window at the pitch black sky—prime hunting conditions, they both think—does she realise that they had been staring at one another, her soft, grey eyes locked into his brown, more stern ones.

"Because if you continue to believe that they are our allies, then they will get too close to you," he replies, turning back to face Amelie. In the short break before he speaks again, he moves swiftly to be kneeling before the still-weak woman, his eyes betraying everything he feels: desire, uncertainty, yet perhaps most importantly, the strongest of beliefs in his words. "And then they will stab you in the back, and leave you to die, destroying everything you have worked for, and everyone who has perished along the way to achieve it." He takes an awkward gulp then, and Amelie finds herself almost laughing for a moment at how _Oliver_ could find a situation which was not to his liking, before she understands the connotations of his words.

He means Sam, her ex-lover, the man who died to save her and Morganville.

"Perhaps you are right," she sighs, sitting back in her chair, closing her eyes and letting herself relax with another present, for the first time in one hundred years...besides with Sam, of course. "Perhaps I have allowed them too much leeway, allowed them to twist my thoughts when I was…_occupied_ with other thoughts, and been tricked into giving them far more than they deserve. How many times have they tried to kill me?" by the end, her voice is as strong as Oliver's, determined that his way of thinking is right.

"You survive _only_ because you are strong, my lady," he continues, still on his knees beside her. In the back of his mind, he finds himself desiring her to open her eyelids for him to see her thoughts; to him, Amelie has always had a weakness in her eyes—her mask there isn't strong enough to keep him out. "And yet soon, due to the unfortunate turn of events of late, you may be attacked. And I do not know whether you would be able to fight them away…or survive an attack."

Slowly, Amelie sits upright once more, and turns to face Oliver, her eyes opening as she moves. She's aware that she's showing him confusion, as well as a strange kinship with his thoughts—something that has very, _very_ rarely occurred in their shared history—yet, strangely, she doesn't care about showing him her weaknesses. After that kiss, the sharing of emotions that neither of them desire to admit they feel, Amelie almost considers Oliver to be someone who deserves to know her weaknesses—not so he will protect her, but more…more because she wants him to know. She wants him to know what Sam could never know, for at least Oliver knows how to hide his feelings; that was something the ginger-haired love of her life could never comprehend: feelings are what get you killed.

That was something _he_ could only understand in death.

"These statements are true, Oliver, and yet I cannot wonder why you are concerned for _my_ well being," she whispers, the volume of her voice barely greater than mouthing the words. "Would you not be more concerned for your own safety if things are so precarious, rather than the security of a woman you despise so wholly?" by the end, her voice breaks ever so slightly, betraying her feelings to Oliver in a much more obvious manner than before.

Oliver stands up and shakes his head in disbelief, a look of something unreadable crossing his face; all she can decipher it as, is something to do with anger, shock and possibly even _love_, as though he can't understand her questioning. "You haven't been present these past days, have you?" he demands of her, returning to his position by her side after a few moments of pacing around the room. She doesn't move to look at him, merely continues to stare where his eyes previously were, her own gaze wide and unseeing.

"I have," she feels the need to correct him, yet he doesn't find the humour helpful; whereas one side of her mouth twitches, Oliver merely continues to stare at her, now looking as though he cannot recognise who she is.

"If you _had_, then you would not be asking me the most obtuse, and frankly, ridiculous question you have ever asked!" he retorts, his voice harsher than any other time this evening. "You would recall that…that we shared an intimate moment, and that I refused to allow you to die, both as a vampire transitioning into a draug and as someone who had survived the infection. If all I wanted was complete power, do you not think that I would have simply killed you?"

"Perhaps you are one of those creatures, like my father, who desired to see those he hated forced to do his bidding for him," is her answer, and this time, her voice is as dry and cracked as ice. "How am I to _know_, Oliver, if you feel human emotions for me, or if you are merely trying to use me to unseat me from my position?"

This time, Oliver growls, and his grip on the arm of the chair tightens, almost dangerously. "_Foolish woman!_ I _desire_ you, more than you can understand; do I have to spell the words out to you, as though you are an idiot?" he snaps, his eyes flashing, and only now does Amelie turn to look at him. Only now, as he proves his emotions through the greatest one of all—anger—does she act as though he could be something more to her than he was before. "I have done nothing but try and protect you, these past months. True, at first, I only wanted your power, and I would have done anything to get it…but then I remembered why I loved you all those years ago, in Prague, in London, wherever we were. I remembered what I threw away, when I tried to end your life, and I just stopped trying to take your power.

"I just knew that you were never going to give it up, so why not allow myself to feel things which ought to weaken me as a man?"

Almost without her realising it, Amelie's left hand lifts to be tracing the outline of Oliver's face, her fingertips barely grazing his skin—and even though he's a vampire, he cannot help but shiver as things he swore he would never feel race through him. Things were never meant to get as heated as they have done, he recognises, and yet he cannot help but feel as though, perhaps, this is the best thing; otherwise, no matter how close they grew, she could always have doubted his true intentions in regards to being with her.

"And we find ourselves with a situation which ought to make no sense—I ought to despise you, as I once have done, and you ought to be trying to take my town—for you are here to protect me, and I am here…I am here to acknowledge your feelings," she says softly, any guards left within her eyes entirely eradicated. "It seems strange, desiring someone to protect myself, for I have always been more than happy to protect myself…and yet here _you_ are, sitting there as though I own you, and you do not care. You care more for me, with your human emotions that you promised me you had long ago shed, than you do for your image—and this is perhaps what endears me to you the most at the moment, Oliver, for you have proven to me that you are more than just a soldier."

She leans towards him ever so slightly, and he gains the understanding of what she wants quicker than he imagined he ever would, though she first whispers, "you are as capable a prince as any I have ever known."

It's not a sweet kiss that they share, as his lips press to hers; it's not even as confused and unexpected as the one they shared previously. It's more of a kiss of two people who cannot understand why they need one another, particularly when, now, they both shun the constraints of attempting to act as though they are human, and yet they do anyway, because it makes life more bearable. And perhaps, now they have shared their emotions with one another, they can be a stronger unit, for there are no _hidden_ weaknesses.

"I have shared everything with you, my queen," Oliver murmurs as their lips break apart, though their heads remain close with each of them having the other's hands in their hair. "We can be a team in this town, able to tear down those who oppose us with a litheness that could not be gained alone. And whilst this is what I suppose I have always wanted, I find the romantic side of it almost as alluring."

Amelie doesn't speak, preferring to merely nod her head in a movement that suggests she agrees with what he has said, before there is a knock at the door. Whereas previously, she would have hastily moved to hide their closeness, she doesn't move particularly far as she calls for the person waiting to enter.

"Your car awaits, ma'am," her manservant says with a deep bow.

Oliver looks at Amelie in confusion, not able to understand where she is going, when they have just been so intimate. "I am going to hunt, Oliver; would you care to join me?" she says in explanation, standing up and moving towards the door without his aid, though perhaps slower than she would at full strength. "And _yes_, I do mean _the hunt_, rather than the pitiful blood stocks. I have not harmed a human in many years, and I do feel that this is the time for change, is it not?"

Oliver merely smiles as he follows her out of the office, whispering in her ear as they walk, "I thought you would never ask."

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**AN2:** I'd appreciate it if you didn't favourite without reviewing.

If you want another AmelieOliver oneshot set after Black Dawn, check out "one thousand suns" which I posted at the beginning of May!

Vicky xx


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